Big marketing effort by Disney-ABC Domestic Television pushed "Katie Couric" to a big ratings on her syndication talk show debut. A Nielsen preliminary 2.8 household rating was the best opening number for a syndication talk program in ten years -- since CBS Television Distribution's "Dr. Phil" entered the marketplace in 2002. Analysts have played up the syndication viewership vacuum that has existed since Oprah Winfrey left daytime talk to move to her Oprah Winfrey Network. Other new …

Brad Mays and Tim Hayden have joined Edelman to strengthen the company's digital and mobile expertise, respectively, building the Southwest region into a digital hub for the company. Mays will report to Morris Denton, executive vice president and general manager of the Austin office, and Hayden will report to David Armano, managing director of Edelman Digital in Chicago.

Wi-Fi provider Boingo Wireless on Tuesday announced Google Play will sponsor free Wi-Fi at more than 4,000 Wi-Fi hotspots nationwide through the end of September. The deal follows a partnership launched in June in which Google Offers sponsored 200 Wi-Fi locations in Manhattan, and later expanded to include 16 airports and eight shopping malls around the country in August. Google Play will now take over the sponsorship for those and other hotspots that include New York's JFK and Chicago's O'Hare …

Federico de Nardis, CEO of GroupM's Maxus Italy, has been promoted to CEO of Maxus Europe, Middle East & Africa. De Nardis, who splits his time between the agency's Milan and Turin offices, will retain his current responsibilities in Italy.

Aegis Media Americas and Aegis Media EMEA CEO Nigel Morris has joined the board of the U.K.'s Guardian Media Group as a non-executive director.

Jeff Karp, Zynga's chief marketing and revenue officer, is the latest high-level executive to leave the embattled social games company. His resignation follows news earlier Monday that CTO of infrastructure Allan Leinwand was leaving Zynga to join cloud service company ServiceNow. Other who have left in recent weeks include COO John Schappert, Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu, and Alan Patmore, general manager of “CityVille,” one of Zynga's best-known games.

Coca-Cola was the top-performing social media brand in August, according to the latest ranking published by social marketing platform Optimal. The company bases the ranking on an index that combines data including fan counts, engagement statistics and “global fan valuation” to provide a baseline for estimating the value of a brand's social media presence. Coke showed an index growth of 1,425 points in August, followed by Reese's (1,378), Monster Energy (1,068), Pepsi (948), and CoverGirl (858). One component of the Optimal Index is the raw growth in the number of …

Ahead of the iPhone 5 unveiling Wednesday, Nielsen on Monday said 55.5% of U.S. mobile users own a smartphone as of July, up from 41% in the year-earlier period. Nielsen tends to be more aggressive than other research firms with its estimate of smartphone penetration, so that figure is probably among the highest out there. For instance, comScore puts smartphone ownership at 49% of the U.S. mobile market as of July.

Mobile marketing technology firm Augme Technologies has appointed former Ogilvy & Mather executive Tom DeLuca as chief operating officer. DeLuca, who will also serve as COO for Augme subsidiary Hipcricket, replaces Robert Hussey, who has been interim COO since June and will join the company's board of directors. DeLuca most recently served as COO for Social@Ogilvy, the agency's social media division, whose clients include Ford, IBM, Nestle and UPS. Prior to Ogilvy, DeLuca was VP, worldwide digital marketing at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and was previously founder and president …

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has named Executive Creative Director Margaret Johnson a partner. She is the agency's first female partner.